250: Jonathan Robinson, Psychotherapist & Best-selling Author: MDMA Therapy and the Nervous System Reset

Welcome to the Sleep As a Skill podcast. My name is Mollie Eastman. I am the founder of Sleep as A Skill, a company that optimizes sleep through technology, accountability, and behavioral change. As an ex sleep sufferer turned sleep course creator, I am on a mission to transform the way the world. Thinks about sleep.

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Each week I'll be interviewing world-class experts, ranging from researchers, doctors, innovators, and thought leaders to give actionable tips and strategies that you can implement to become a more skillful sleeper. Ultimately, I believe that living a circadian aligned lifestyle is going to be one of the biggest trends in wellness.

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And I'm committed to keeping you up to date on all the things that you can do today to transform your circadian health and by extension, allowing you to sleep and live better than ever before.

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Well, welcome back to The Sleep Is a Skill Podcast. I'm Molly Eastman, and today we're doing one of those deep dives that we've hinted at for quite a while, the kind of conversation that can feel edgy, hopeful, and honestly, deeply needed if you're doing quote all the right sleep things and still not getting relief.

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And that's why I'm so honored to bring you today's guest, Jonathan Robinson, a former psychotherapist and author of. 16 books. A longtime media voice. Yes. Oprah and CNN. And in this episode, Jonathan shares his personal origin story growing up in a highly traumatic environment and how that early search for healing led him into modalities like hypnosis, meditation, and his widely known work around MDMA.

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Assisted therapies. If you've ever felt like you are doing all the right things for sleep, but your body still won't let you land, this episode may give you a totally different lens. One that's less about hacking and more about healing. Couple disclaimers, of course, is. Never medical advice on this podcast.

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This is for informational purposes only, and I do suggest checking out his book Ecstasy as Medicine, and he has a new book coming out around Ecstasy for couples. So it's a really fascinating conversation and I believe the number was over 700 MDMA assist. Did sessions that he has led for individuals across the globe and aims to make it affordable and in his books goes into the science of why this could be incredibly healing for a number of people.

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On a personal note, I myself have gotten to delve into MDMA facilitated therapies and it has been nothing short of life changing. So absolutely, just from a personal aside, I'm really excited to continue to learn more and he. Brings it and bringing lots of great information on this episode. So let's get into it.

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But first, a few words from our sponsors. As we head into the fall and vacation season winds down IEA time when late nights irregular eating habits and indulgence tend to become the norm. It's time to get back on track with our health and of course our sleep. Just a quick, interesting fact about sleep to mention drinking more than two servings of alcohol per day for men and more than one serving per day for women can decrease sleep quality by.

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A good night's. Sleep will improve your wellbeing much more than just about anything else I can possibly think of on the planet. Uh, you know, I'm biased, but gotta say that. And sleep is your major to focus on as we head into the fall season and hopefully beyond. And that's why I recommend that if you're going to start taking some supplements on your sleep often, magnesium is a great place to begin.

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I 

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will also include this in the show notes as well. 

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And welcome to the Sleep is a Skill podcast. This is gonna be one of the first, we've alluded to some of the topics that we plan to dive into and in various episodes over the years, but this is gonna be one of the first real deep dives, and I'm so grateful and honored to have such an expert in our midst.

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So Jonathan, thank you so much for taking the time to be here. 

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Well, thank you Molly. This will be really fun. 

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Yeah, absolutely. Well, maybe a little bit about your story and how in the world you found yourself such an expert in some of these modalities that we're gonna dive into that can directly, potentially really be supportive of things like sleep, nervous system, regulation, et cetera.

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Yeah, well, um, I was blessed to. Grew up in a really highly dysfunctional family. 

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Same. Yes. Lucky us. Yay. 

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It was, you know, rather violent and very traumatic. Yeah. And, uh, so by age 12 I was looking for, how can I kind of deal with this? Obviously I couldn't leave my family, so I, I got into, uh, what my dad, uh, who was a good guy, but my stepfather and mother were kind of, uh, you know, screwed up.

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So my dad called it weird stuff, which was mostly hypnosis, psychedelics, and meditation. So by 13, I was meditating every day and I was doing hypnosis. I later became the head of the hypnosis lab at uc, Santa Barbara, and did my master's thesis on the therapeutic effects of MDMA, which is often known as ecstasy or Molly.

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And then when I became a therapist, I started to see that, you know, you can help people a lot quicker with hypnosis and psychedelics and meditation than you can with talk therapy. 

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Yes. 

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So that's why I've kind of specialized in, I ended up writing 16 books and some of them Oprah, like, so I was on a show a bunch and they sold, you know, millions of copies.

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And that's the quick bio. 

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That is quite the bio that's, you got the Oprah bump and everything. Oh, man. Right, right. That's, and you said it was 16 books, was that right? 

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Yeah, uh, I just finished, I just published my 16th book called Ecstasy for Couples. Yes. Uh, two days ago. 

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Oh, congratulations. Well, I was honored to be able to have a little bit of a pre-reading of that one, and so what I got a chance to kind of glaze over was fantastic and exciting.

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So potentially maybe we could begin there on this topic of ecstasy as medicine. I know that title of one of your books. And just, you know, kind of an introduction for people of how that might be supportive or could potentially be supportive for things like sleep, nervous system regulation, and almost like demystifying, because I've seen just in kind of casual conversations, interactions, sometimes a knee jerk response of, oh, you x.

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Sissy, you know, the kind of a drug that maybe people had particular relationship to and not maybe being aware of some of the ways that it could be supportive from a therapeutic perspective. 

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Yeah. Well, you know, a lot of people who probably listen to your podcasts are aware of the, some of the basics about how to help with sleep.

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Sure. 

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What they don't realize is that when, when those don't work extremely well for you, then you have to explore other stuff. And the three things I found most helpful are ecstasy, hypnosis, and meditation. 

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Mm. 

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Now with Ecstasy or MDMA, they're the same thing. What people don't know is that in the seventies it was mostly used as a therapy drug.

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And was found to be amazing. But then when people who were going to the therapist and getting cured in a day, you know, talked about with their friends, then, you know, it started to get into the club scene and, and the whole thing with that. But then over many years it became very, uh, known as being helpful for people with trauma.

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And we thought about a year ago that the FDA was going to, uh, legalize it for the use of trauma. It ends up big Pharma kind of intervened and made sure that didn't happen 'cause that was gonna cost him a lot of money. It ends up that ecstasy is 35 times more helpful in curing trauma than the next best treatment.

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Wow. 

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So it's, it's quite effective. Um, you know, I often cure people who've had trauma for, you know, 30 years and I cure 'em in a day. That's how effective it is. Now, I'm a decent therapist, but the MDMA does a lot of the heavy lifting. 

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I love that, uh, that humble way of sharing that. And then, uh, one of the things I loved in your book that I thought was really interesting that I hadn't fully considered or understood was how you explained even those fantastic results that seem to come outta some of the research outta maps, but even outta maps, maybe the way that that's set up is to point to the validity of ecstasy as kind of therapy or, uh.

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Prescription or a pill. And so as compared to them blending that with some of the modalities that you're speaking to and then getting all these other extra results out of it, I wonder if you can kind of break down some of that. 

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Yeah. Well, so Rick Dublin, the head of maps thought the best way to get FD approval is to just say, well, it's like a pill that you take and it'll cure you.

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He knew that it was really good for therapy. But FDA, it's not called the Food Drug and Therapy Administration. Yes. It's called the Food and Drug Administration. 

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Well 

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said. So he knew that, that if they had a bunch of therapy along with it, that the FDA wouldn't approve it. And in fact, that's exactly what happened, that they said, even if you have any therapy whatsoever, uh, we're probably not going to approve it.

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Now, it ends up just giving people MDMA. Without any therapeutic interaction, still gets 35 times better results than antidepressants. 

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Geez. 

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But with therapy, which is what I do on, uh, when my clients take MDMA, you get even a lot better results a lot quicker. So there, if you gimme $10 million, I can prove that, but it takes 10 years.

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And $10 million. So there's no proof of that. But what I've seen is that I can, you know, cure most people of their trauma in a single session. Uh, with MDMA. Now the way that relates to sleep is, especially, you know, people have had long-term sleep issues, uh, and it's tragic, but, um, 40% of American women have been raped or attempted rape.

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Yeah. Now when you've gone through a tragedy like that, your body starts to think it's not safe to go to sleep. 

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Sure. 

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So that's pretty deep in the programming. And what I do is I, through the MDMA and some therapy, um, neutralize a lot of those fears. Mm. So that your body no longer has that, uh, sense of fight or flight.

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In there, which is keeping them awake, uh, at night. So you know it when you have a, a history of trauma, you know, having a good eye mask and having a good sleep ritual isn't usually enough. 

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Absolutely. I couldn't agree more. You know, it's interesting 'cause a lot of the people that either listen in or that we might encounter, that we might work with often are tracking in some way, shape or form.

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Not always, but commonly. So different wearables and things like heart rate and particularly heart rate variability. HRV. We've anecdotally heard reports of people seeing improvements in those markers, particularly HRV, after kind of the well facilitated sessions with mm-hmm. MD MA with the practitioner.

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And so I'm curious if you've seen anything like that kind of measurable change or even just that, that subjective call out when it relates to sleep or nervous system. 

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Yeah. Uh, you know, I, I have a, uh, ring con I guess. Yes. They call it. And there's orange rings and things like that. 

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Yeah. 

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And I often suggest that people get that.

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Um, I was working with a former Miss America 

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Mm. 

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Miss America in 1957 actually. 

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Oh, wow. 

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And, um, and she allows me to share her story. She was raped by her father every day for 10 years, and she had not had a good night's sleep for 50 years. 

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Oh. 

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And after an MDM a session, she said it was her first good night's sleep in, in half a century.

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And, uh, you know, we tracked some of her, her vitals through, uh, things, and she saw a dramatic shift just that her nervous system was so uptight. That the Fitbit and such were just tracking that everything calmed down after her session and she was able to sleep. So yeah, it has, has definite physiological effects.

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Uh, but the most important thing is people get some good sleep. 

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Yeah, yeah, exactly. Like even beyond the numbers we get to ex. Experience what it's like to sleep and sleep well reliably. So amazing. Yeah. So then when we're talking about, so in case anyone's like, whoa, whoa, whoa. I'm still stuck on the fact that this is MDMA.

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Like is this safe? Who is this okay for, you know, kind of all those kind of main callouts beforehand, so people can even kind of be present for this conversation to see could they potentially be a candidate or maybe someone that's close to them, et cetera, et cetera. Like how do we think about that? 

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Yeah, well, so there's various psychedelics.

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There's like psilocybin or mushrooms, there's LSD, there's ketamine, uh, there's iboga. There's a lot of things out there now that are people are studying and to see what effects that they have. The problem with things like magic mushrooms or LSD or even ketamine, is that a good or ayahuasca, A good percentage of them have difficult trips, especially if they've had a trauma background.

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Yeah, 

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I, you know, I don't know the exact numbers, but I'd say like one in four have very challenging experiences. Yeah. And they're not that effective for trauma. Uh, they are effective for other things like, you know, LSD and, and occi are pretty good for anxiety and depression. Um, ketamine can be good for, uh, depression.

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Ayahuasca, uh, is is sometimes useful for people, but they're, they're more challenging drugs. 

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Yeah. 

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So I've led maybe about 700 MDMA sessions and none of them have had a problem, so I'm so, you know, 

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amazing. 

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I guess somebody could have a bad trip if they took in a bad situation. You know, but, uh, therapeutically, it's, it's the most gentle, uh, peaceful, open-hearted drug available as long as people are getting good MDMA, which is an issue.

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Yes. 

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You know, because some, some of the stuff out there is not pure. As long as they're getting good MDM made, people don't have bad experiences and it works really well with trauma and it also works really well, uh, with couples. Uh, yes. Healing or enhancing their relationship. 

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Yeah. And since so common, I mean, that's one of the fascinating things about sleep as an area to observe in our lives, is that there can be many different reasons, of course, as we know that could be impacting this area, but certainly relationships and the health of our relationship can bleed right on in there.

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Especially if that person is laying right with you every night for Yeah. Potentially decades. So maybe just tapping on that for a second, since certainly you have a new book coming out that it can speak to this. So yeah, I'm very curious what you see there. 

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Yeah. Well, so the book's called Ecstasy for Couples and it's uh, sub is How MD Make can help you create more love less conflict in your relationship.

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And it's a hard time for couples now. You know, life's very stressful. We don't have a lot of information or training on how to have good long-term relationships. Um, so by the time I used to see people in therapy, they were often, you know, had been having trouble for years. 

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Yeah. 

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And it's really hard to solve problems with somebody who you're annoyed at.

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Uh, 

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so true. 

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Solving problems with somebody who you feel connected to and really, uh, love is pretty easy. So I wrote a book called Communication Miracles for Couples a lot of years ago, and Oprah loved the book, so it became a bestseller. I did a lot of therapy and I didn't like working with couples because normal couples counseling is like a long, slow slog.

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Yeah, absolutely. 

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It's no fun for anybody. 

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Right. 

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You know? But, um, on MDMA, you know, couples are more open. They're, they're not defensive. They really care about each other. Mm. And I could do two or three years of couples therapy in an afternoon. It was felt and was easy too, you know? Yeah. And enjoyable. So then, as you kind of alluded to once partners are, are connected and feeling good.

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That's a big load off people's stress level. 

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Absolutely. Oh my goodness. Yeah. And one of our most popular podcast episodes state was with a Dr. Wendy Trel who wrote, sharing the covers and looking at the person that you're sleeping with and, and could be your partner, could be your kids, could be pets in the bed or whatever, but sharing the covers.

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Yeah. And how just that presence can be disruptive for sleep for many different reasons. Or even just. The experience, like your connection with that person, or maybe lack thereof. And you know, this whole idea of like a sleep divorce or a sleep alliance became very much in vogue enough that people were searching enough to for that to come up.

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But I show that because we see that that interpersonal piece being such a huge factor for people with their sleep for many different reasons. So the idea that we can bring this together if people are listening and being like, Hmm, you know, I've been struggling in in my relationship. Maybe this could be something for me.

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How do we think about maybe finding a practitioner or what would that look like? Is the hypnosis a big factor to have in there? How do you think about this? 

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Yeah, well, finding good practitioners that charge you a reasonable amount is the challenge. Um, 

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yeah. 

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And actually I, people can email me and I, I, I did a course, uh, on training practitioners.

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Yes. 

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And it's like a 40 hour course. It's pretty thorough and 500 people took it. Some therapists, some not therapists. I allow people who aren't therapists to take that course and uh, a lot of times I'll just send people. A, a referral list of 10 people. I can vouch for 

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sure, 

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you know, that, that took the course or good, or trained in this, uh, I also do it, but, uh, usually there's a waiting list for me if people are in a hurry.

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Yeah. They can go to, uh, the website, ecstasy as medicine.com and there's a place to contact me and they can get, I can send them that, uh, referral list. Oh, and that's all free. 

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Sure. 

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Uh, and the good news is that, you know. Price is important. The maps approach, if it ever gets FDA approval, which it probably will, uh, is, is very expensive.

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Yeah. It's like $15,000. 

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Wow. 

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Whereas, uh, the people I train are, uh, required to do it for one 10th or less than that. 

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Oh, really? Oh, I didn't 

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realize 

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that. How cool. '

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cause you know, I'm trying to help people actually at this point, I don't need money. 

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Yeah. 

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Um, and I want this protocol, which is extremely effective to reach people.

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So the people who take my training, uh, are required to not charge. More than 1500 bucks. 

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Oh, that's amazing. And when you say this protocol too, what might that look like that might be unique from someone that just, you know, decides to one day now they're gonna lead MDMA journeys. Like how do you, and I'm sure that's gotta be kind of maybe frustrating for you, I don't know, but how do you think about that?

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Some of the important features that you would see in a well-trained practitioner? 

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There's a lot to know. Sure. I mean, just like, you know, if you're a psychotherapist, it might be, well, it looks like you're just talking to people, but then they have, you know, 3000 hours of training 

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behind 

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them. 

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Sure. Yeah. 

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So there's things to know medically, like, you know, there's contraindications, people on SSRIs or antidepressants really doesn't mix well with MDMA.

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Yes. 

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There's other things, uh, like certain health issues that could be a problem. Um, also in the training I teach. 27 specific techniques for trauma, for anxiety, for depression. You know, that's a lot of techniques. I have a lot various doctors talk about physical things to make sure that people, um, don't have any problems with that.

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There's. Integration methods, which often are overlooked. I have a lot of emphasis on how to take the insights that you get during a a session and bring them into your life. And in fact, after the journey, I have one or more integration sessions in which we kind of cement that down so that people are using the simple techniques, actually work for them.

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So I have to train people in, in, in those very precise integration methods. Uh, there's, that's why I say the, the training's 40 hours. Yes. For a reason on video, uh, 300 pages of documents, you know, it's Wow. 

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Got it. 

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Yeah. And people wanna find out about that. Uh, m dma training.net. 

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Okay. We'll make sure that we include that in show notes.

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Absolutely. Because yeah, it feels, you know, the old cliche, you're doing the Lord's work, it's just feels like you're getting out there sharing this information and making it available at. A more affordable price point for people. And I know in your book you spoke to this concept that as opposed to, you know, maybe people could get benefits from these multiple sessions or what have you, but often you're seeing some of these benefits all wrapped up in one go around, let alone not needing necessarily all those sessions.

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Is that right? 

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Yeah, 95% of my clients just do one session and don't feel a need for a second one. 

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Amazing. And about that hypnosis too, since it sounds like that was an important part of that kind of toolbox that you mm-hmm. Have for yourself and others. How might we think about hypnosis and for sleep and blending that in with MDMA or ecstasy?

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Mm-hmm. 

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Yeah. Well, first of all, um, different people need respond well to different things. 

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Yeah. 

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You know, like, uh, let's take a, a, a drug. We all know caffeine. 

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Sure. 

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Uh, if you haven't had caffeine for a while and you drink a cup of coffee, it's like, wow, this is like methamphetamine. You know? Yeah. 

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Right.

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Whereas I have a friend that drink nine cups a day and can fall asleep half an hour later, you know? 

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Wild. Yes. 

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Uh, so people need d react differently. One of the things I like about MD Mae is that almost everybody reacts very similarly. They, they feel really peaceful and open-hearted and sober in a certain way.

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Yeah. 

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So when it comes to hypnosis, it's important to know that, let's say there's three categories of people. One third of people are terrible subjects, one third of people are medium subjects, and one third of people are amazing subjects. So I can test people really quickly, like I know that you'd be a very good hypnotic subject.

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Really. Okay. 

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Yeah, can, can, 

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what are some of the signs? 

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Well, um, partly personality, but also your eye movements. 

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Oh, interesting. 

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Okay. So I've hypnotized thousands of people and I see that the best subjects have certain eye movements, a lot like yours. 

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Hmm, my gosh. 

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Now, I would imagine that you probably. Uh, either remember your dreams or you're very affected by movies.

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Like you'll cry at a sad movie. 

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Definitely. The movie piece. Oh, 

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yeah, yeah, yeah. 

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Really connected to that. Yeah. 

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So those people, people like you, uh, can very much use hypnosis to help them with sleep. And in fact, I often can. Even put them on MDMA Hypnotically. 

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That's what I was curious about. Yeah, that sounds fascinating to me.

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What does that look like? 

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Well, you know, I made my way, I'm paid my way through college by hypnotizing people to, uh, believe that they were on cocaine. 'cause that was popular at the time. And they would have the same high, but without actually destroying their life. 

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Amazing. That's very fun. Party favor. 

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Yeah.

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Yeah. So, um. So for the people who are good hock subject, that's another tool that they can use to help them. I often suggest that they get like a, what's called a pillow speaker. They put, it's like a flat speaker. They put under their, their pillow. 

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Sure. 

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And then they listen to a hypnotic induction to help them to sleep.

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That works very well for them. That's, or I might hypnotize them to imagine that they're on MDMA or imagine that. They can experience their trauma without the feelings of trauma attached to it, so that can accelerate their healing. So it's really a matter of finding the, the method a any given individual will find most useful for them.

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Sure, absolutely. 

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Now, the problem with, with a lot of therapists is that they know one or two methods, so they try to fit everybody into that particular thing. They might know CBT, or Yeah, you know, whatever they know. And, uh, if the client reacts well to that, then great. But if they don't. Then they may not know, uh, other approaches that would likely work better.

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Very interesting. Yeah, I got that sense from your book. Just the ability to pull from so many different modalities and all the years of, you know, kind of on the ground experience to then pluck from can just. Seemingly such a difference. Just for a scope for people that are truly just completely green to this conversation.

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About how long do these sessions usually last? What would a kind of journey quote unquote, look like for someone? 

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Sure. Yeah. Well, when people are interested, they, they contact me and we set up a one hour session. I do pretty much all my sessions over Zoom now. Yeah. Which is an interesting thing because for a lot of years I did them in my office.

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Sure. And then COVID hit. And then I, I thought, well, would this work over Zoom? And I found, and now I've done, you know, 300 sessions over Zoom, uh, that it actually works better over Zoom than in person 

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that is so, and you were telling me that too, and I was trying to like understand where that, and it really started to land when you were saying one, what you shared about for women and some of those concerns.

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Yeah. And as opposed to just being with a strange, you know, stranger and a man and in this new space and what have you. Set and setting aspect. But then it sounds like it also even opens up the doors for, as you were saying, this, like one to many optionality for you to impact as many people as possible.

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It's not like, you know, guarded by borders or you can really access globally it sounds like. 

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Yeah, yeah. I have clients from China, Japan, Korea, Australia, you know, um, a large part of the impact of, of therapy comes from feeling really safe. 

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Yeah. 

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And what MDMA does is it reduces blood flow to the amygdala, which is the part of our brain that responds to trauma and fear.

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So you become like fearless on MDMA. Yeah. But another level of safety is Zoom. 

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Yeah. 

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You know, 'cause if, if, if you've been. Sexually abused by someone. Let's say you're a woman and I'm asking you to come to my office and take a drug. 

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Yes. 

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You know, that's a big ask. I, I, you know, I wouldn't want to do that. Yes.

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But on Zoom, there's like that sense of safety and, uh. So the other advantage is that, you know, it's more convenient for everybody. 

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Yeah. 

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You don't have to, you know, fly to my place to, to, to work together. Yeah. So we do a one hour call. I find out your situation. I find out, uh, we talk about, you know, if it's right for you or what's gonna work best.

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And then if we agree that to go forward, we do a five hour session. I, I, I let people know how they can get pure medicine. 

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Yeah. 

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I work with because that's really important because half the MDMA out there is not pure, and it's not even MDMA. Ugh. 

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Absolutely. Okay. 

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So, so people I work with, I, I, uh, let them know a, uh, safe way that they can get good medicine, and then we come up with a time a day where we can spend five hours together on Zoom.

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And it's really just like a five hour therapy session. In which also I'm teaching people certain methods that will be very useful for, uh, after the session. 

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Sure. Yeah. And in, uh, that ecstasy medicine book, you kind of walk through some of those ways that people could utilize some of these tools thereafter, including some really clever ways of helping to behavior change.

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You know, bring about the, was it the I can method and Yeah. Other things to really keep that alive. Uh, I think it's so important. And so you would walk people through some of that in kind of setting them up powerfully. So the first call. The actual journey for around five hours. And then those follow up integration, that call?

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Yeah, the integration call is usually around an hour and it takes place about a week after the session. 

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Okay, great. 

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And my goal and my job is to make sure that whatever method we found work best for you, that you keep on using it. And as you alluded to, I have a very, uh, uh, innovative way to make sure that people stay with.

‍

The things that they know will help them, but often in the past didn't do that. 

‍

Yes. Yes you do. I dunno if you can share even like a little clip of that. I thought it was very cool. 

‍

Sure. And what's interesting about this method is now that I've done it with tens of thousands of people, I found that doesn't really matter whether people think it will work.

‍

Mm. 

‍

Yeah. I, I, I've had people positive that won't work, but if they do the method, which takes about three minutes a week, it always works. 

‍

Wow. Amazing. 

‍

So a simple version of the method is, let's say you wanted to, uh, make sure you meditate 20 minutes a day for the next week. 

‍

Okay. 

‍

You know, you might think, yeah, I know I should do that, but you don't do it, you know?

‍

And so you say you write a contract to you and one other person who called you accountable. It could be your husband or friend, whatever. And you say, I'm gonna meditate every day for at least 20 minutes. That's my promise. Because you know it'll help. And then you say, every day that I don't do that, I will take out a dollar and rip it to shreds, 

‍

which is just so wild.

‍

The like cognitive dissonance on that act. It's just really a, a tricky one. That's so interesting. 

‍

Yeah. I would never have expected that. It works as well as it does. Yeah. Until I started using it with everybody. Now most people, you know, when you, they say they're gonna do this, a little voice in their head says.

‍

Bs. You always say you're gonna do it and you never do it. 

‍

Yes. 

‍

But when you have a decision between, uh, meditate or whatever it is working out, you know, doing whatever and ripping up a dollar, people hate to rip up money. It's only a dollar. 

‍

Yes. 

‍

But they really, subconsciously we just say that's a no. Like, I don't wanna do that.

‍

Yes. 

‍

And, and you end up saying, okay, well I'll, I'll do the meditation now. Every now and then you blow it. 

‍

Yeah. 

‍

You know, so this ends up costing me about a dollar a month. 

‍

So wild to make some of these changes that people will pay, like whatever, personal trainers or all these things, all this money, just get this little structure going.

‍

So good. 

‍

Yeah. Yeah. 

‍

But with the fuel, presumably of that really impactful journey that then you were a part of to kind of in the background now in alignment with that. Some of the things that I've heard from people for kind of rebuttals of just not even looking into this would they'd say, well, I'm not, I've heard the come down is just so hard, too much, and I don't wanna bring any of that about what do we see there?

‍

Well, in the Ecstasy as Medicine Book and also the Ecstasy as couples book, I talk about that because that, that's an issue. Um, it ends up that there's certain supplements you can take. Right before, during, and after the journey, that tends to reduce those side effects, either a hundred percent or 80%. Wow.

‍

Amazing. 

‍

And most people don't know what those are. That's why, you know, I make sure that when they get the medicine, they have access to those supplements. And they're also in the book, uh, for people who wanna learn about them. And there's really like six or seven supplements. They're low cost that, uh, you can get, and that tends to reduce those side effects to close to zero.

‍

Anyways. 

‍

Okay. Amazing. And how about anyone that might have concerns of like long-term impacts, they might have heard rumblings of, oh, it's gonna dump out all your serotonin and you're never gonna get it to the same levels, or some of this kind of tactics along the way, or just particular information that maybe doesn't apply.

‍

Could you kind of help us think about that, maybe of what that looks like? 

‍

Yeah. I appreciate you've done your homework, Mollie. So you're asking really great questions. So it ends up that it does. Dump a lot of serotonin into your brain. It takes anywhere from a week to two weeks to get back to the full level.

‍

Okay. 

‍

That's why it's, it's not good to do ecstasy every week. 

‍

Yes, exactly. 

‍

But it does totally return within a week or two. There is no long-term effect that way. But if you do this, uh, you know, three times a week for a year, that can be a problem For sure. Ends up it's less of a problem and you don't hear people get addicted to ecstasy because what happens is it stops to stops having an effect 

‍

really.

‍

Yeah, that's why you don't hear of people getting addicted to ecstasy. I mean, it can happen, but it's very, very, very rare just because you'll, you, you'd be taking the drug, but you wouldn't be feeling anything 

‍

really interesting. Okay, so it kind of has that own self-policing mechanism from the sound. 

‍

It does.

‍

It does. 

‍

Yeah. 

‍

Okay, 

‍

great. One of the things that we do every podcast is we always hear from different experts in their various fields of how they're managing and thinking about their own sleep. But before we get into some of those questions for you, I know that this is a huge topic. I mean, we only really just scratched the surface, but was there anything major that we left out that we want to address or call out before we look at your own sleep?

‍

Yeah. Well, I'd say that, you know, you think of MDMA, well, first of all. Talk therapy tends not to work very well. And I say that as a psychotherapist, you know? 

‍

I appreciate that. Thank you. Adds to the credibility right there. Thank you. 

‍

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's why it's good to have other avenues. I think of MDMA as kinda like a Swiss army knife.

‍

You know, people might experience their, their sleep issues as anxiety issue or as a depression issue. Or as a trauma issue, or as a couple's issue, whatever, that it tends to accelerate. Greatly the process of getting to the root of the problem. Yeah. So that then you can come up with a solution that is tailor made to that individual.

‍

Mm. 

‍

Uh, whereas psilocybin, um, and ketamine are more for other things, you know, ketamine's more geared towards depress severe depression, psilocybin more towards, uh, spiritual issues. Um, but MDMA is, is more, uh, first of all, it's a lot safer, meaning, 

‍

yeah. 

‍

Nobody who takes pure MDMA in a supportive setting has a bad trip.

‍

I mean, I'm zero for 700, so I can say that, 

‍

wow, 

‍

it's safer, it's more enjoyable, but it's also, I think, uh, more adaptive. To people's needs based on what they, they need. 

‍

Sure. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And it's, uh, it's so interesting and I'm glad you kind of walked us through those, 'cause sometimes people maybe might lump all psychedelics in as like kind of having such high risk potential for these bad trips.

‍

And so I appreciate you kind of helping to walk us through that. That might not be the case with MDMA from what we were Well, 

‍

it remind, it reminds me, you know, my, my parents were. Wondering why I was spending so much time focused on this illegal drug. Yeah. And, and I said, well, you know, you'll only understand if you try it.

‍

And I have this story in the book where they said, well, we're, we're willing to try it. So I gave them the MDMA and told them how to take it together. And a year later I asked them if they'd taken it and they said, yeah, we took it. And I said, well, what happened? And they said. We took it and we waited like 15 minutes and nothing happened, so it didn't work.

‍

I thought that's that. That's unusual. Well, it actually takes about 45 minutes for it to take effect. 

‍

Yeah. 

‍

So I said, what'd you do after you thought it didn't work? And their eyes kind of lit up and they said. Well, we didn't have anything planned, so it ends up, we sat on the couch and we had the best night of our entire marriage.

‍

We talked about how much we love each other and how grateful we are, and we'd had these. Problems that we'd had, and we worked them out that night just 'cause we were able to talk about it and then we cuddled on the couch for a couple hours. It ended up being a real blessing that we had nothing planned.

‍

And I'm laughing hysterically because of course that's the effect of the medicine. 

‍

That's the effect. Ah, I love 

‍

that. But you know, one of the things I like about it is that it doesn't feel so much like you're drugged. It feels like you're kind of at your best. 

‍

Mm. Yeah. 

‍

And that's very different than say, ketamine or psilocybin.

‍

Totally. A hundred percent. Yeah. Wow. Real quick question on that is sometimes people will hear about this integration period thereafter. About how long is that? What is that, when people hear that, is that just like a nice idea or actual tangible things happening in the brain that makes it maybe more neuroplastic for a period?

‍

Yeah, there's been some interesting studies about that, that there's about a, a week or two period where your brain is more open to learning, you know, kind like, like, okay. One year olds are more open to learning than adults. You know, they can learn a language, you know? Yeah. Uh, so there is a period where people are more receptive to trying new things.

‍

They're, they're, they're less defensive. And I try to make. You know, use of that time so that people can change at an accelerated rate. 

‍

Oh, so cool. Okay, well thank you for walking us through all that. And my understanding based on what I had read from your books was that you've also dabbled into ecstasy over the years from a therapeutic perspective and otherwise, so curious if any of this kind of leaks into maybe some of your results with.

‍

Sleep or how you think about sleep, or maybe not, but you can let us know. So our first question is, what might we see as your nightly sleep routine right now? 

‍

Well, I am lucky in that I do have a hot tub. I do like that when I can. Yes. Amazing. You know, that's always nice. Yeah. I've learned to wind down a little bit.

‍

So I'll do a, uh, five minute meditation or something like that often either with my wife or without her. And That's good. And I also, you know, use a sleep mask that can help. Another thing I'd say I do is. Avoid screens for at least half an hour before. 

‍

Absolutely. 

‍

Now, if I'm having a hard time going to sleep, uh, which, you know, occasionally happens Sure.

‍

Uh, I'll, I'll get out of bed, uh, get in the hot tub, come back. Oh, nice. And, and there's another ritual I have, which I found is very helpful. Um, but you need a dog to do it with. Oh. Uh, and that is. Just spending time petting my dog and appreciating her. Oh, I love that love. It's, it's, you're, you're filling your heart and, and you're the sense of letting go of the day.

‍

Mm. 

‍

Uh, so that's like a mini meditation for me. And, uh, my dog loves it too. And, and she sleeps better. 

‍

Wait all around. I love that one. Maybe it could work for cat people too, I'd assume, right? Yeah. Like yeah. Different 

‍

cats. 

‍

The cat will cuddle with you. 

‍

Yes, yes. Fish may be trickier, but I love that. Great.

‍

Okay. So that's kind of a, a rundown of your nightly sleep routine right now. Mm-hmm. And then what might we see in your morning sleep routine with the idea that how you start your day could impact your sleep? 

‍

Well, I think it's always great to start your day with gratitude. 

‍

Yes. 

‍

And I, uh, will. Think of people and pets that I love, that I'm grateful for.

‍

And I'll actually say, you know, thank you for their health. Thank you for my health. Thank you for other things. And I think that's a, uh, a great way. And also I, I use a lot of light, uh, you know, 

‍

yes. 

‍

To wake me up. 

‍

Good. Yay. Love 

‍

that, you know. And of course, uh, I do have a personal trainer that comes to my bed every morning at five 30 and wakes me up by licking my face.

‍

And that's, uh, my dog 

‍

that's gonna say the, the surcharge on. That must be a lot. 

‍

Oh, twice a day. That's basically it. 

‍

Totally. This dog is really coming in like really huge for like, bookend of. Ending your day. Starting your day. It's so good. 

‍

Absolutely. 

‍

Okay. That's amazing. What might we see visually, you know, in your nightstand or in your kind of sleep environment?

‍

Well, certainly my sleep mask also, you know, there are other weird things that my dad would say. Weird things like, uh, I don't know if you're familiar with Biomodulation helmets. 

‍

I'm, okay, so I've got my, I can see it right over here? Yes. 

‍

Oh, great. Right. A little. So, so if I'm really wound up, I might use that.

‍

Yeah, 

‍

great. Um, or, or binaural beats or things like that. So I have, uh, my, my, uh, iPhone with headphones there, sleep, pillow, the speaker under the pillow if I need that. So those things are all by my bed in case, uh, I'm pre wound up from the day. 

‍

Fantastic. And real quick with your, all your knowledge on hypnosis, is the hypnosis that you might maybe put on the sleep pillow, is it something like prerecorded or do you make like your own with your own voice, any call outs there?

‍

Well, I use my own because, uh, I, I do do hypnosis and yeah, I will just play it on my phone. Um, but yeah, people can get recordings that are really good that way. Uh, and also I teach a lot of my clients to do self-hypnosis that way. That is very effective and that can be very. Easy to learn and effective for certain clients.

‍

How cool. I love that. Are any of those things kind of add-ons that people might be able to kind of request or pay for extra sessions with you say if they do a journey and then they want some of these additional tools to have for the rest of their lives, is that something that they can add on with you Potentially.

‍

I don't charge 'em for that. That's actually part of what I give them. So I have those recordings, I'll send it to them and things like that. That's 

‍

part, oh my goodness. Love this. Okay, fantastic. And then the last question would be, so far to date, what would you say has made the biggest change to either the management of your sleep or maybe said another way?

‍

Biggest aha moment in managing your sleep. 

‍

Well, one that's pretty obvious will be don't drink caffeine in the afternoon. 

‍

Yes. 

‍

My, A ring showed me that one. Like, you know, totally don't do that, yo uhhuh. But I'd say, um, my daily routine of meditating, you know, there's, is, there's so much stress nowadays that you need some way to de-stress every day.

‍

Okay. And for some people it might be working out, it might be dancing. For me it's meditation. 

‍

Mm. 

‍

Uh and uh, I find that when I do that every day, I just sleep a lot better. You know, eventually became just part of what I do. And it has helped tremendously. 

‍

How cool. The meditation that you do, I know you mentioned 20 minutes, just in your example before, is yours around like a 20 minute session or do you do TM or other types of meditation or mix it up?

‍

I mix it up because I get bored easily, you know, I like to try different things. Also, you know, I have a podcast called Awareness Explorers, and this might be a resource to people. 

‍

Ah, absolutely. 

‍

So I've interviewed everybody from the Dalai Lama to Deepak Chopra and thanks. I asked them at the end, can you give me your best 10 minute guided meditation?

‍

So, uh, if you go to awareness explorer.com in the navigation bars, word meditations, okay? And we now have 180 of those, and they're all free. And 

‍

you can 

‍

just find a guided meditation that you really like that calms you down and, uh, helps you to unwind. 

‍

Oh my goodness. How cool. And real quick. So as far as your own personal journey with Ecstasy, MD, may.

‍

What do you think have you seen for yourself or could you imagine that there has been a correlation with that use and things like your sleep nervous system regulation, or is it hard to kind of correlate? 

‍

Well, I think it's, in the long term, it's easy because the MDMA is what originally got me to see that there's a whole new way of being peaceful and relaxed in life.

‍

Ugh. 

‍

It's a big deal. 

‍

You know, my, my brother and sister who didn't get into this stuff, you know, they, they're like, you know, on lots of medications and they're always stressed out. 

‍

Yeah. 

‍

Um, but when I saw that, oh, this is like this, this could be really nice. I could sleep well, I could be peaceful. It spurred me on to, you know, do things like meditation and, and get a dog and, and have a good relationship with my wife.

‍

You know? Yeah. So all those things help, but it's really a lot of. Realizing that daily stress reduction's helpful. You know, we, we understand that with the food we take, we need to, um, eliminate some stuff every day. 

‍

Yeah, totally. 

‍

You go three, four days without eliminating stuff, you start to go, go to the doctor, you know?

‍

Yeah, exactly. 

‍

Well, you know, but we take in stress every day, so you need some way of, of letting it go. And, uh, the md MA is certainly one function for working at a very deep level, but then there's all these other things that can help with the daily stress. 

‍

Yeah. You know, I thought it was interesting in your books where you talk about different ways of relating to these journeys, and even at the.

‍

Some points, kind of self-guided journeys, although in the case of kind of what we're talking about with sleep and what have you, certainly the guided journeys, but I got the sense that maybe you were saying too that from a seasoned relationship to MDMA that people could potentially get benefits even from self-guided, is anything you've done for yourself over the years or even to think of like ways to take your life to the next level or kind of like new year's planning amped up type of thing.

‍

Yeah. You know, in both those, uh, the SY is Medicine Ecstasy for Couples, I talk about how to do it on your own. 

‍

Sure. 

‍

And, and what would be like, good questions to ask. 

‍

Yeah. 

‍

Um, the problem is that, you know, it's so enjoyable is sometimes you just wanna bliss out. So it's 

‍

Yes. 

‍

Hard to use it therapeutically on your own.

‍

Totally. 

‍

But about once a year, I do that just to Okay. You know, clear out any cobwebs and get clear on, on where my focus is, any obstacles I need to be aware of, and, and I find it very useful that way. 

‍

So. Good. And real quick, from a kind of, you know, we talk a lot about circadian rhythms and kind of having some of our daily practices align with these rhythms in nature.

‍

Do you recommend that people kind of do this in the mornings afternoons, or is it kind of just depend on the person and their situation? 

‍

It probably depends on the person, although I suggest that they start a journey somewhere between 11 and three their time. 

‍

Oh, 

‍

okay. 

‍

Because you know the journey lasts about five hours and then you have a few hours, then you go to bed.

‍

Yeah. 

‍

You know, whereas if you take it at 8:00 AM then you're spending, you know, nine hours like, okay, what do I do now after the journey? Yeah, you don't wanna take it too late 'cause then you'll stay up all night. 

‍

Yes. 

‍

So, uh, sometime between 11 and three. Their time is what I recommend. 

‍

Oh, okay. Really cool.

‍

Very great. So for people that are listening that I'm sure have even more questions, we kind of laid out some, um, gave, you know, I feel like we need like a part two or something, but for people that are listening and they say, okay, I need to learn more from this person's clearly one of the top experts in this area and has all of this experience, has been really sitting with this topic for many, many years, has gone deep on it.

‍

How can they. Work with you, be a part of your world. I know you alluded to the podcast, some of these other resources. Tell us all the things. 

‍

We'll probably start with one of the websites, either xtc mm, not xt, but xtc as medicine.com or xtc for couples.com. They can reach me there and, uh, they can find out how I work if, uh, I'm not, uh, soon available, I have a bunch of referrals I can send them to.

‍

And, uh, answer all their questions that way. 

‍

So good. Uh, amazing. And then if anyone is listening and thinking, wow, I'd like to get trained, uh, you know, by, and use the protocols that you've spoken to and, uh, be a part of that program, they can also do that too on your site. 

‍

Yeah. Well, uh, that. I have all about that training@mdmatraining.net 

‍

training.

‍

Okay, 

‍

got it. And, and it's pretty thorough and, and, uh, yeah, that's, uh, I'm really proud of that training and 

‍

mm, 

‍

I think, um, as more people see how effective this is, there's gonna be an up swelling of people who want this type of therapy. 

‍

Absolutely. And actually just real quick with that note, any forecasting or thoughts or just anyone's guess as to the possibility of it being legalized or different ways of being able to access this?

‍

Yeah, I talked to Rick Doblin of Mapps, uh, not that long ago, and he said that he expected that it would actually be, uh, put into what's called Schedule four sometime the next year, which is like, uh, the same. Category is things like, uh, Valium or, or Xanax, uh, where you use a doctor's prescription in that way.

‍

Mm-hmm. 

‍

Um, it's hard to say because the pharmaceutical companies don't want that to happen. There's a lot of money involved, but. The science speaks for itself and there's a lot of movement towards it being more available, 

‍

so. Great. Well, I so appreciate you taking the time, sharing all your wisdom, and also, as you've noted, taking the time and when now, at this point in, in your life, might not even.

‍

Need to be devoting this much time, energy, and effort to people that need it. And yet you're doing it and making a difference for people. And you know, just really, really appreciate that. Can see that this could just be something that could be so supportive for people and people that I'm navigating the waters with on helping to support with their sleep.

‍

Just makes all the difference in the world. So thanks so much for taking the time. 

‍

Well, thanks for your podcast, Molly. You, you're doing a great service as well. 

‍

Oh, well thank you very much. We might have to have you back, my friend. 

‍

Okay. 

‍

You've been listening to The Sleep Is a Skill podcast, the top podcast for people who wanna take their sleep skills to the next level.

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Every Monday, I send out the Sleep Obsessions newsletter, which aims to be one of the most obsessive newsletters on the planet. Fun fact, I've never missed a Monday for over five years and counting. And it contains everything that you need to know in the fascinating world of sleep. Head on over to Sleep as a skill.com/newsletter to sign up.

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